Google will soon put your face, name, and content in its ads

Your name is ____, and you endorse this Google message. Right?

If you always wanted to see your shining face next to Google ads, your wish will soon be granted. Today Google announced plans to roll out “shared endorsements,” which will augment its own advertisements with information from users who rated, reviewed, or gave a +1 to the service or location in question.

The move echoes Facebook’s “sponsored stories,” where the social network started turning users’ likes or check-ins into ads on its site, all without asking permission or even notifying them. A public outcry, class-action lawsuit, $20 million settlement, and limitations on the use of users’ content followed.

Google revealed its shared endorsements scheme in a change to its terms of service. The updates state that going forward, friends, family, “and others” may see a user’s Google profile name, photo, and any endorsement they’ve created for a company alongside ads for that company. For instance, if Jon Brodkin gave the new Nickelback album 5 stars and said in a review that the band is “the voice of our generation,” the next time someone searches for that album, Brodkin’s rating and praise could appear alongside a sponsored placement.

Google specifies that the privacy scope of the content you share will affect how it is used in an endorsement. If Brodkin shares that favorable Nickelback review to only his Google+ circle of Friends, only they will see it. If he shares it publicly, which is the default sharing setting on Google content, anyone will see it.

Users are opted in to Google's new scheme by default. In the past, Google gave itself permission to use users’ +1s alongside advertisements unless the user specifically opted out. The new “shared endorsements” are an extension of that setting, wherein Google gives itself permission to take even more of a user’s content and place it alongside ads.

To opt out of being a shared endorsement, Google users must go to the “shared endorsement” settings page, which is currently not linked anywhere from either their Google+ account or privacy settings (the ads have yet to go into effect, so Google may be waiting to integrate the page until the feature is live). At the bottom of the page is a checkbox next to the phrase “Based upon my activity, Google may show my name and profile photo in shared endorsements that appear in ads.”

If a user previously opted out of Google using their +1s in ads, this box will appear unchecked. For anyone else, it will be checked by default.

As the New York Timespointed out, Google would not specify whether advertisers will choose to have shared endorsements on their ads or not.

The handful of Google users’ reactions on Google’s profile on relevant posts range from neutral (because of the opt-out) to disappointed or indignant. “Very Facebookesque. Puts you off reviewing anything,” said Michael Sharp.

Google is going about including its users in advertising in a slightly better way than Facebook did, making a semi-public announcement and providing a way to opt out. The real problem is that the majority of users simply don’t pay attention to these sorts of things.

Google is able to put changes to its services front and center if it chooses. It did so with the massive overhaul of its terms of service and privacy policy back in January 2012 by placing an alert both under the search box on its homepage and on search results pages. This shared endorsements change flies a bit further under the radar.

If you're uncomfortable with the idea of your content being used in advertisements, even if it’s just certain types—no one has time to go back through their profile and groom out posts set to public that weren’t expected to be used in ads—there is a window of opportunity to avoid it altogether. Google has already opened the opt-out page and will not roll out shared endorsements until November 11.

Update: Google has added a link to the terms of service changes on its home page, though not on the Google+ main page.

Promoted Comments

The only way to crush our email overlords is to destroy our entire species and give the planet back to the cockroaches.

I'm okay what Google is doing because I pay attention to what they do, and people like the awesome Ars Staff spread the word on how to fix it.

As long as Google respects my opt-outs (which it seems that Facebook is unwilling to do), I don't really care. Serve me your text ads, Google. I pay only enough attention to consciously filter them out. It is a fair price to pay for a whole 15gigs of storage. (I eagerly anticipate them upping it to a terabyte in light of Yahoo's recent move.)

But are they going to put my name up there when I put a negative review up? I somehow doubt that.

Faitl's comment was spot on, but I also wonder if Google will be going above and beyond direct reviews and "reaching through" single sign on to pick up reviews from sites where you may be using a different screen name? That does bother me if so.

872 posts | registered Jun 1, 2010

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

The only way to crush our email overlords is to destroy our entire species and give the planet back to the cockroaches.

I'm okay what Google is doing because I pay attention to what they do, and people like the awesome Ars Staff spread the word on how to fix it.

As long as Google respects my opt-outs (which it seems that Facebook is unwilling to do), I don't really care. Serve me your text ads, Google. I pay only enough attention to consciously filter them out. It is a fair price to pay for a whole 15gigs of storage. (I eagerly anticipate them upping it to a terabyte in light of Yahoo's recent move.)

Well, more reason to start cutting back even more on Google services. But seriously, I'm getting a little tired of the whole push to splatter your data/information everywhere for everyone to see/use/etc. Oh look, some random acquaintance thinks it is a good idea for me to buy this product. Great.

And people wonder why I use Adblock/Ghostery/etc...

EDIT: Rereading what I said and the post, I think I could give Google a little slack on this. If this is about public reviews, then by all means, splatter them reviews. I just dislike this increasingly overshared, in-your-face style of advertising.

So content that is set to 'public' in your privacy settings will be viewable by the public, while content that is set to 'friends' in your privacy settings will only be viewable by your friends? (or replace 'friends' with any other G+ circle name of choice).

I'm having trouble getting outraged over this, and I don't think I've ever reviewed anything on Google, but I appreciate Ars, as always, giving us the heads-up on stuff like this. And yes, I did un-check the setting.

Really these services will eventually put themselves out of business. At some point, people are going to say "Enough!" and may actually get a life instead of posting on facebook, google+ or.... er.... forums....

I can't remember the last time I actually +1'd something, and Google just ensured that I'm never going to again. Congrats on torpedoing your social network by repeating the mistakes of your competitors, Google!

Users are opted in to Google's new scheme by default. In the past, Google gave itself permission to use users’ +1s alongside advertisements unless the user specifically opted out. The new “shared endorsements” are an extension of that setting, wherein Google gives itself permission to take even more of a user’s content and place it alongside ads.

Because it's not just reviews. It's +1's. And you may +1 something to enhance your own personalized search - not to broadcast your +1's across the internet.

+1s are public.

Not necessarily. You can control +1's visibility just like their new endorsements. So I think Google is taking the correct approach here. If you have opted out in the past you'll be opted out now.

I don't really like how we got to this point, but extending current Google+ privacy settings seems to be the intuitive option. It would have been better if Google had given a choice for initial +1 visibility instead of that being Opt-Out as well.

Quote:

If a user previously opted out of Google using their +1s in ads, this box will appear unchecked.

The really bad news about this though, regardless of your feelings about Google, is that we're probably going to see another Microsoft "Scroogled" ad over this.

*sigh*

They had a big TV ad campaign here in the UK for Outlook.com, slogan "Your privacy is our priority". It was still running when they were outed as one of the most enthusiastic Prism collaborators. Nobody does PR failures like Microsoft PR failures

Bah. If Google made this opt-in, no big deal. Really, I can see the value for even end users who like putting their name out there. But forcing opt-out is going to cause some surprises for a lot of unsuspecting users, especially since it goes beyond G+. Dammit, Google.

edit: +1 for providing links to the settings page and the opt-out page. Thank you very much.

Of course. It's called Google search. And GMail. And Google Drive. And Google+. And...

EDIT: Really, what do you expect? That you get all of these services for free? This is, and has always been, the price of using Google services. It turns out that advertisements are _incredibly_ more effective when they are endorsed by someone you know, so it's not surprising that Google is trying to capitalize on knowing who you know and what they like. This will just enable Google to make more money, and thus build more products that you really like using. Or you could leave the Google ecosystem, taking your "endorsements" with you. It's your choice. But note that Google's identity products (like Google+) have strong user-facing privacy controls baked into them from the beginning, so you control at any point who gets to see what you share.

What if my profile picture is of some product and I make reviews about competing products? Will it then show my competing product's image as my profile image next to the ad that it's competing with?

Example:Let's imagine that I put a Coca Cola bottle into my profile picture* and put sharing as public. Now I write a review about Pepsi. So when they show an ad for Pepsi will it show my profile picture with the Coca Cola image next to the Pepsi advertisement? What could POSS

* maybe I'm holding it in my hand, or maybe I'm just hoping they don't realize I'm not actually in the image. Technically it can be any <insert competing product>

But are they going to put my name up there when I put a negative review up? I somehow doubt that.

Faitl's comment was spot on, but I also wonder if Google will be going above and beyond direct reviews and "reaching through" single sign on to pick up reviews from sites where you may be using a different screen name? That does bother me if so.

What if my profile picture is of some product and I make reviews about competing products? Will it then show my competing product's image as my profile image next to the ad that it's competing with?

Example:Let's imagine that I put a Coca Cola bottle into my profile picture* and put sharing as public. Now I write a review about Pepsi. So when they show an ad for Pepsi will it show my profile picture with the Coca Cola image next to the Pepsi advertisement? What could POSS

* maybe I'm holding it in my hand, or maybe I'm just hoping they don't realize I'm not actually in the image. Technically it can be any <insert competing product>

better question, what if somebody notices their picture is being used for a product and then they change their picture to something obscene?

It is not my understanding that this is the case. It is my understanding that the total number of +1s is made public, but individuals can control the visibility of their own +1s. (Mine's been set to "just me, nobody else" since I first found that control.)

It is certainly possible that I'm misunderstanding the privacy controls Google has put in front of me. If so, I find that icky.

What if my profile picture is of some product and I make reviews about competing products? Will it then show my competing product's image as my profile image next to the ad that it's competing with?

Example:Let's imagine that I put a Coca Cola bottle into my profile picture* and put sharing as public. Now I write a review about Pepsi. So when they show an ad for Pepsi will it show my profile picture with the Coca Cola image next to the Pepsi advertisement? What could POSS

* maybe I'm holding it in my hand, or maybe I'm just hoping they don't realize I'm not actually in the image. Technically it can be any <insert competing product>

better question, what if somebody notices their picture is being used for a product and then they change their picture to something obscene?

Face detection is basically a solved problem - it would be easy for Google to filter these advertisements based on people with faces as their profile pictures. Google also has good porn filters. This isn't actually that big of a deal, as long as they've thought about these issues.

Not sure I see the issue (other than the inevitable kneejerk PR issues). When I post a public review it tells me that this will be public and show up when people look at reviews.

When I post something on a website and it's designated as "public", I don't care if people see it. I expect it. It's the whole point.

As long as they don't make something searchable by the public after I've marked it as private or only shared with certain people (a-la Facebook's new search terms) then I don't care.

The only time I get bothered is when I send something to one or more people (via email, a social site like G+ or Facebook, or whatever) with the assumption that it is only visible to those people and then the site decides to just share it with the general public. This defeats the purpose of those services. They are useful as ways to send a message or other data to specific people. They can also be useful to "broadcast" things to the general public if that is your intention. As long as the status of who can receive my "transmission" doesn't change after it is sent, this seems obvious.

It's only a matter of time until some website creates a "Where has this user been today?" and by giving the website a Facebook and/or G+ account tells you everything a user has read, liked, replied to, or seen on the entire internet.

It's kind of disturbing actually. It'd be like having a video camera over your shoulder at all times.